TigerHawk

TigerHawk (ti*ger*hawk): n. 1. The title of this blog and the nom de plume of its founding blogger; 2. A deep bow to the Princeton Tigers and the Iowa Hawkeyes; 3. The nickname for Iowa's Hawkeye logo. Posts include thoughts of the day on international affairs, politics, things that strike us as hilarious and personal observations. The opinions we express are our own, and not those of each other, our employers, our relatives, our dead ancestors, or unrelated people of similar ethnicity.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

So, you think Al Gore inflates the threat...

By TigerHawk at 7/29/2008 08:07:00 AM

If you think that Al Gore has inflated the threat of anthropogenic global warming you are going to delight in this bit from the BBC:

New and cautious calculations by the New Economics Foundation's (nef) climate change programme suggest that we may have as little as 100 months starting from August 2008 to avert uncontrollable global warming.

Nothing short of the rapid and wide-scale re-engineering of the economy will be sufficient. Radical change, though, is needed anyway because of the credit and energy crises; the latter driven significantly by the imminent peak and decline of global oil production.

No simple techno-fix exists that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions fast or far enough to solve the problem.

The answers are going to be economic, political and behavioural. Many countries, not just the UK, are going to need to learn the art of rapid transition.

Among the supposed remedies for climate change proposed in the article:

"a structural transformation of the regulation of the financial system"

"breaking up discredited financial institutions that have only survived through the injection of vast sums of public money"

"clamping down on tax havens and obfuscatory corporate financial reporting" [we are shocked that Sarbanes-Oxley did not stop global warming - ed.]

"to prevent inflation, we want to see much tighter regulation of the wider financial environment"

"establishment of an Oil Legacy Fund, similar to a highly successful Norwegian government initiative, paid for by a windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies"

"More realistic fossil fuel prices, raised to include their cost to the environment"

"make available the low-cost capital needed to fund the UK's green economic shift whilst having controls in place to prevent inflation" [Price controls? Seriously? - ed.]

Proposals like these published in supposedly serious forums give credence to the concerns of the rest of us that climate change hysteria is just the latest justification for socialism. Many of us who love economic wealth and the post-industrial consumer economy are big believers in weaning the planet from fossil fuels for both environmental and geopolitical reasons, but we are loath to support a cause that attracts so many people who want to destroy capitalism. If the climate change activists are serious about winning the political battle in the United States they should propose solutions that maximize wealth and minimize the distribution of wealth and the regulation of the economy. Of course, most of those solutions will take longer than 100 months to implement. One suspects that is why the socialists are cranking up the hysteria -- only command and control "solutions" can even theoretically be implemented in 7 1/2 years.

No simple techno-fix exists that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions fast or far enough to solve the problem.

Simply untrue. An all-out nuclear blitz could erradicate a good percentage of the world's population, eliminate most of the green house gas producing industries, and add the advantage of initiating a nuclear winter.

Of course it might also be argued sometimes the fix is worse than the initial problem.

I asked a friend why people she knew were boycotting Exon-Mobile gasoline, since, as the world 14th largest producer they were in a poor position to control the price of oil. She said they were boycotting that company because they were the largest American oil producer. The socialists are so upset at the collapse of the the Soviet Union that they are much easier to spot now. Now all we have to do is make sure they don't get elelcted.

During the peak of the Ice Age, about 50,000 years ago, sea levels were more than 300 feet below current levels. So, if we had been alive during the Ice Age, we would consider the current environment a total ecological disaster. Imagine a prehistoric Al Gore yelling, "If we don't act now, the earth will be covered in lush vegetation!"

Oh, and Polar Bears and humans were alive during the Ice Age, and we've survived all the previous warming. But, will we survive the liberal, socialist agenda?

TH says, "If the climate change activists are serious about winning the political battle in the United States they should propose solutions that maximize wealth and minimize the distribution of wealth and the regulation of the economy."

I understand all of that except "minimize the distribution of wealth". Could you expound a little for those of us who napped through Economics 101?

As for why the hysteria is being cranked up, your theory that it's to force us into command and control solutions has definite appeal. I also like the theory I've seen elsewhere that since the planet may be cooling, the Global Warmists need to push for big actions now. If they wait, it will become clear that Global Warming isn't happening and no one will be interested in their changes. At the same time, if they succeed in getting big changes then they can claim credit when the planet does cool.

I know the amazing disconnect between stated beliefs - AAGW is destroying the planet - and actions - Al Gore is still living in that house - argues for a belief that the leaders of the Global Warming troops are cynically using AAGW to achieve their own ends. However, I see the same disconnect in friends of mine who believe passionately in the truth of AAGW yet never even think of living in a smaller house, taking mass transit to work, and so on.

It's very odd but I suppose no odder than people who claim to be religious but never consider applying religion to their daily lives. It does, however, provide a ray of hope for those of us who prefer to avoid draconian solutions. If the guy next door who believes in AAGW could truly understand the impact of the solutions being proposed, he might be less inclined to go along with them.

So what about China, India, Russia and the ultimate capitalist roaders, the United States?

I suppose that we will get President Obama to mouth these platitudes (Just another reason to write in DEC for President in the Fall election), but I actually doubt he would be so monumentally dumb to actually enact all this drooling foolishness, because is would slam the economy into reverse faster than you can say "Tony Rezko is a crook."

1) Beware any "crisis" whose doomsayers are telling you that the only solution is to do..... exactly what they have been advocating you do since long before the "crisis" ever came to be.

2) These are savvy folks. Why the sudden "100 month push"? ( Why.... soooo..... seriousssss?) Well, if they are correct on all fronts, all the better we act fast. If they are wrong.... fast action means they can take credit for the inevitable reverse... and be locked into their socialist straightjacket forever. And further if they are wrong, that wrongness will eventually become obvious to all. If it becomes obvious without their agenda, they are (ideologically) doomed.* If they get their "100 months, again, they can either take credit or so obfuscate the issue that we are locked in eternally.

They're a running back who sees his whole in the defensive line. It's now or never. No wonder they're on a 100-month tear.

* ("Ideologically doomed" might be wishful thinking. The total collapse of the Soviet Union seems to not have had so much as a dent in their thick skulls. These people are like vampires.)

I'm a physician in the USA (the most regulated market in the world) and constantly deal with goverment-driven hysteria over the latest quack study done by a pseudo-scientific group with a political agenda. A perfect case in point is the "Institute of Medicine" study claiming 80,000 deaths per year from "medical mistakes".

Of course, the study was based on innuendo, extrapolation of insignificant data and a healthy measure of "fudge"...but the result was widespread panic amongst hospital administrators and draconian solutions to problems that don't exist.

The ultimate solution, of course, was the socialistic agenda of universal health care, massive government control and cost containment.

I see several connections to the Global Warming ruse. It would seem that there are a large number of people who are active in our government who have a socialist agenda. They will never attain their goals by the democratic process. They can attain some of their goals within the judicial process. In the end run, they will have the best chance to attain the agenda with populist movements.

If the climate change activists are serious about winning the political battle in the United States they should propose solutions that maximize wealth and minimize the distribution of wealth and the regulation of the economy.